For as long as she or anyone else can remember, Brianna Eastman has always had a strong voice that she was never really afraid of being made heard.
 
Even if sometimes it didn’t exactly work out in her favor.
 
“I got in trouble a lot for talking in elementary school,” Eastman joked.
 
Now a freshman at Wabaunsee High School, Eastman’s voice doesn’t get her in trouble one bit. In fact, her voice is one that has become a valuable addition to school with her involvement in multiple sports and clubs at the school.
 
Whether she’s using the voice to direct others in her various service acts, spouting out answers for her FCCLA knowledge team or as part of the scholars bowl team or singing Christmas carols to elderly citizens in the surrounding communities, Eastman already has a commanding presence at Wabaunsee.
 
“I’ve been teaching for 24 years and she’s one of my first in being able to come in, assess a situation and get down to work,” said Lisa Hull, who teaches chemistry and physics at Wabaunsee and also is the school’s KAY sponsor. “I had never met her (before high school) and didn’t really know her at all. But immediately I was quite impressed. Normally when freshmen come in they’re kind of followers. They need to learn the ropes and understand how the hierarchy goes. But she saw right away that with us being a small club we needed people to step up and right away she wasn’t afraid one bit to do that.”
 
Indeed, Eastman has hit the ground running at Wabaunsee High and is this week’s CapFed® TrueBlue® Student of the Week.
 
Even though Eastman doesn’t necessarily call Christmas her favorite holiday, Hull said her freshman sensation “exemplifies the meaning of Christmas.”
 
What does that mean exactly? Well, in basic terms, it’s the spreading of love, hope and joy.
 
And with an extensive background in service to her community, it’s hard to argue Hull’s proclamation about Eastman.
 
Despite not being an office in Wabaunsee’s KAY Club – those positions are voted on before the arrival of the incoming freshman class – Eastman has taken a lead role in the club’s Christmas service project.
 
This year’s KAY Christmas activity was stuffing stockings for the Heritage Home, an intergenerational senior living facility in Alma. Soliciting items such as hard candy, chapstick, lotions and puzzle books, Eastman helped the club generate not only enough donations to fill the stockings for the facility, but also have enough excess to donate to the Santa Express Drive, which through other clubs at Wabaunsee High School distributes items to other senior citizens throughout Wabaunsee County.
 
For a KAY chapter that only has nine members in it, that kind of response was extraordinary, Hull said.
 
“She’s been just awesome,” Hull said of Eastman. “She’s been instrumental in getting the whole school involved, not just the KAY club.”
 

 
Which only seems natural for Eastman.
 
For as long as she can remember, being a part of something that gave things back to the community has been a part of her life. It really began when she got involved with Wabaunsee’s 4-H club at an early age.
 
Even though one technically can’t join the club until 7 years old, Eastman was involved well before that. Her mother, Jennifer, was heavily involved in the club well before Eastman came of age to join, in part because her siblings and their children were involved and also because Eastman’s grandmother, Kendra Stover, was an extension agent for the club.
 
“I got to go to all my cousins’ stuff and see what they do and that made me want to do it even more,” Eastman said. “That’s really the first activity I was involved with. Since then, that’s really made me become a leader. I really like applying those skills to other areas to help other people.”
 
Her 4-H background has really helped mold Eastman into the active leader she’s already become at Wabaunsee. By the time she hit high school, any shy bone in her body was long gone and Eastman was ready to make an impact in whatever way she could.
 
A three-sport athlete in cross country, basketball and softball (she did track and field in junior high with softball not an option at that level), Eastman knew the athletic arena really wasn’t the field she would have her biggest impact. Though that is argumentative.
 
As a member of Wabaunsee’s cross country team, her presence helped the Chargers qualify for the Class 2A state meet as a team this past fall. That’s not a position she ever thought she’d find herself in.
 
“That was probably the highlight of my freshman year,” she said. “I’m not a superstar athlete so I didn’t picture myself as a cross country anything. But the team is just amazing and has had a big impact on me.”
 
Yet after taking up the sport in seventh grade, Wabaunsee coach Roger Alderman said Eastman’s presence there has been impactful as well.
 
“Brianna always brings a good attitude and strong work ethic to cross country,” Alderman said. “She is a great role model for anyone entering our program as she shows how much you can improve with hard work. Brianna has gone from working to break 20 minutes in the 2-mile to being our No. 5 runner as a freshman and a big reason why we qualified for state as a team.”
 
As much as Eastman was an impact for the cross country team, the team itself has had a big impact on her, too. Joining the team as a seventh grader, Eastman got a quick introduction to the high school side of things with both the high school and junior high teams working out together.
 
Thus she got a chance to learn from the like of current Wabaunsee seniors Payton Wurtz and Isabelle Stuhlsatz, who not only had an impact on her in athletics, but also well beyond.
 
“They’re definitely very good role models,” Eastman said. “Peyton showed me it’s OK to be yourself and speak up and speak your mind. That was nice jumping in as a seventh grader, new to all of it and being able to be myself. They’re all very hard-working and that was good to see as well.
 
“I’ve been good friends with a lot of the seniors since I was in seventh grade. A lot of the seniors in cross country are involved in a lot of the things I’m involved in so we see each other all the time. It’s been nice to get close with them and we feed off each other. We can collaborate and impact our different organizations in many ways.”
 
All are involved in KAY with a handful also a part of Wabaunsee’s band, for which Eastman plays the clarinet. It’s another of her passions, one also with a strong family influence with her mother having been in band for six years in junior high and her aunt, Jenny Nelson, having played in the Kansas State marching band alongside her former middle school band teacher, Jamie Rogers.
 
“I’ve always had a lot of fun with it,” Eastman said of band.
 
Wabaunsee’s band only had nine members, as does the Chargers’ KAY club. But small numbers doesn’t put a limit on what impact they can have and Eastman takes that to heart.
 
“Seeing how much we can accomplish with such few people really shows that anybody can do anything if they put their mind to it,” she said. “We’re such a small community too that we can really see on a personal level what kind of impact we’re making because we can see these people around town, outside of the activities we’re doing.”
 
While Eastman was most excited about joining KAY and Student Council once she got into high school – she’s an at-large representative for STUCO this year – she hasn’t limited herself to just those clubs. She’s also involved in FCCLA and FBLA, this year, having also participated in FCCLA for two years in junior high.
 
During her junior high FCCLA participation, Eastman did a Star event and competed at state for two seasons. This year, however, she’s backed off a little bit on her commitment to the club with much of the competitive season of FCCLA conflicting with one of her 4-H interests – shooting sports.
 
She’s qualified for 4-H nationals in BB guns and air rifles in past seasons, placing 18th individually out of 70, as well as being on two team qualifiers. That season runs from the start of January through March with competitions every weekend, culminating with a state meet in April and nationals in July – which is the same time frame as FCCLA competitions.
 
But Eastman plans to jump fully back into FCCLA activities next year and is seeking a district office. She did help Wabaunsee’s FCCLA knowledge bowl team qualify for nationals, even though she won’t be able to compete.
 
FCCLA and FBLA are something close to her heart, however, as Eastman has a career goal of some day owning her own bakery. She’s already legendary around Wabaunsee County for her homemade apple pie and last year at a 4-H camp at Kansas State she focused her workshops around bakery and business.
 
“My parents have a picture of me in an apron and a diaper so I’ve wanted to do it since I was little I guess,” she said.
 
Again, much of who Eastman is has been derived from her 4-H days.
 
“I’ve really tried to find ways to implement those leadership skills I learned in 4-H,” she said. “A lot of it is the community service aspect. Most clubs have that, but I was really hoping I could implement other things I had done in other places into that.”
 
And she has. In addition to the Stocking Stuffer project she’s done leading into Christmas for the KAY club, she’s also put together a tie-blanket project that her 4-H club has done with regularity. That one has also taken off, with the Wabaunsee chapter taking it to the unit conference in January where other clubs will also be involved in tying the blankets for distribution.
 
Instead of just having a local impact, this project can go state-wide.
 
“We can donate to anybody we wanted and we’ve chosen children hospitals around the state,” Eastman said. “We are pretty tiny organization compared to other KAY clubs, but we do a lot for our community. The main thing I’ve gotten out of it, I attended the regional conference last month and learned things other clubs do and as a club how it affects the whole state. Each club can only put together so much for their area, but we’re able to accomplish tasks across the state.”
 

 
Eastman’s approach has certainly not gone unnoticed at the school.
 
“Brianna has always been a hard working, caring individual that definitely understands and demonstrates an ‘others before self’ philosophy,” Wabaunsee athletic director Jeron Weishaar said. “Her being recognized for her contributions is no surprise and well deserved.”
 
“She sees the whole picture and can sum up how many people we’ll need for a particular event, where they need to be and what they need to be doing,” Hull said. “She’s first in line to start going about how we need to do things to get it done. 
 
“Her ability to stimulate discussions and develop creative ideas has really been a turning point for this club.”
 
Which is exactly the kind of impact Eastman hoped she’d have, and will continue to have for the remainder of her high school career.
 
“I’ve never been a star athlete, so joining extra-curriculars and band and things like that really helped me get involved in a way where I truly can see I made a difference,” she said. “Sports, you do things for yourself and your teammates. But KAY, 4-H, any service club, you’re doing it for everybody else.
 
“I just want to leave here knowing I’ve made an impact on the students and the community. Any kind of community service opportunities and any kind of leadership that I can pass along to future students, that’s my most important thing. For people to come, be welcomed and be able to show their true self.”